Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition (19 page)

Clint went out to the area of the coral
reefs. The woman’s body was found with her snorkeling paraphernalia
in place. She wouldn’t be in there unless she was looking for
something specific. That could well mean the body was brought into
the bay after she was killed. Doc said she died of drowning, which
could have occurred anywhere. Lividity was disturbed by the water
currents moving the body about to where they couldn’t say whether
she was moved after death or not.

He could use the working assumption that she
and her friends were snorkeling around one of the small coral heads
or along the reef around the end of the peninsula, found the money
or whatever, were taking it out and were discovered.

Crap! She wouldn’t be the one killed and she
would show some signs of resistance. A stranger couldn’t have done
it that way. That meant her two friends. The fact they were at that
spot had to mean something.

Okay. Hook on that unexplained taxi. They
were here to find that money. It was probably put there by them
some time ago. When the heat died down they came after it – which
didn’t work, either. They wouldn’t have brought her along, in that
case. This was the kind of puzzle Clint claimed to hate, but he
actually liked the challenge. He liked to answer unanswerable
questions for his own satisfaction.

He went back to Bocas Town. Judi had nosed
around a bit and had found that Shannon O’Brien had come to
Changuinola in the taxi to meet Besford and Dennis. Marta, whose
sister worked at the Estranjero Hotel in Changuinola, said the two
men booked a room for her the day before she arrived. They had the
taxi driver staying in the Pension Grande Vista. Marta had Susana
check on that.

There was nobody like Judi Lum for getting
information! What she learned in a couple of hours would take him a
week!

An
interesting side note: the taxi driver, a large black man they
called Gordo, seemed to be far more in charge at times than the
others, though Shannon O’Brien was also sometimes in charge, it
seemed. They didn’t actually argue, but they didn’t actually
not
argue, either. There seemed to
be some tension at times.

Gordo, in a small-truck taxi from Santiago.
That should make him easy enough to find! Clint thought about it
for a few minutes, then packed a few things in a backpack and told
Judi he was headed for Santiago. There were answers there –
something he had damned few of at the moment. Nothing made sense in
this one. He took his boat to Chiriqui Grande and caught the bus to
David, stayed the night at the Pensión Costa Rica in David and
caught an early bus for Santiago.

Santiago is a rather sleepy town in an area
that specializes in cattle ranching. It’s hot much of the year and
reminded Clint of south central Texas, though it tended to more
greenery. He always stayed at the Bocas del Toro Hotel there and
frequented the small bar and restaurant across the carretera. He
knew a number of people in the area so was soon able to find that
Gordo was David (Gordo) Silverano. He had gone somewhere a week or
so before and hadn’t returned. He lived part of the time in
Veraguas where he had a house. Yes, he was often taking the Irish
lady places and she was even staying at his apartment for several
days before they left. The two surfer type men weren’t known there
at all. Shannon used the internet café by The Pyramid, where the
bus station was. She spent a lot of time there. She seemed to
communicate with someone on Skype. They heard her talking, but it
wasn’t in English or Spanish sometimes. Sometimes it was, but no
one listened to anyone else’s private conversations.

Clint found where the apartment was and spoke
with the landlady. She said Gordo was usually quiet and wasn’t ever
any trouble except he had women there. That wasn’t at issue if it
was just one or two for long periods, but he had different ones
every week, it seemed. He was sometimes too bossy around his women
and they sometimes got loud. She had to threaten to have the police
move him if he didn’t stop that kind of thing.

Clint got the taxi registration number from
her and went to the registro to make a computer check on it. Gordo
had a few minor tickets, one only days ago at the Rambala
checkpoint for not having the left turn signal light working.

Big deal! Taxis almost never used anything
but the horn, anyhow!

Clint checked with the police checkpoint at
La Mina, in the mountains. The taxis are noted when they pass,
though they are seldom stopped. Gordo had come in the direction of
David two days before. He had two passengers, but they weren’t
checked because there was no alert out for any gringos.

Clint called Jose’, a friend who drove a taxi
in David, and asked if he knew Gordo. He had met him a couple of
times, but didn’t think he was in David now. He hadn’t been there
in a month or so.

Clint called the more important checkpoint
near Tolé. Everybody got checked there who didn’t have a cedula,
and some who did..

Gordo and friends had not passed there. They
had an alert to note if he came through and to get ID from any
passengers, but not to delay him unless new orders came through.
They had come through La Mina, but didn’t come through Tolé. That
meant somewhere between.

Clint caught a bus to David. He got off in
Chiriqui. Gordo and company hadn’t stopped there and hadn’t been
seen there.

Clint went to Gualaca. Gordo and passengers,
three men, had come through and had stayed an afternoon, then left.
They asked about Boquete and points between.

Boquete. They didn’t go there.

Calderas? No. Clint was going all over the
place to no advantage and was getting tired of spending his day in
a bus. There was a nice, fairly new Honda XL for sale at a very
good price just outside of Gualaca. Clint swore he would never own
another car when he moved to PAnamá, but it had become necessary.
He had plenty of money in the bank from some jobs, more than he had
any use for, so he sighed and bought the thing and insurance and
such. He had a license for Panamá so sighed and swore again and
headed toward the carretera from that end. He stopped in Dolega,
Anastasia and Concepcion – where he found they had stayed last
night, then drove off toward Panamá City about two hours ago. There
were three. They stayed at the hotel just about a mile toward
David. Clint went to the hotel where he learned that Dennis and
Besford were now accompanied by a Carlos Samosa, Panamanian, from
Veraguas. They were headed in that direction.

Santiago again. Clint was learning he could
get as tired of driving as he did of buses.

Santiago, and they might have passed through.
Wanda thought she saw Gordos’s taxi at The Pyramid half an hour or
so ago. The girl at the cash drawer at the restaurant in The
Pyramid said they stopped for about ten minutes. One of them jumped
on the bus for Panamá City that was just leaving. The other two, a
dark man and a blond man, left with the taxi. She didn’t see which
way they went.

The Latino man was the one who caught the
bus. He was carrying a suitcase and a maleta. She noted that
because people seldom used both. One or the other, usually only a
small maleta for the Panamanians. Clint decided that most probably
meant Veraguas, but why did the Veragueño go toward Panamá
City?

Only way to find out was to go to Veraguas.
Clint had a decent meal at The Pyramid, spoke with several friends
en route from David to Panamá City, then got in his car and headed
for Veraguas. This kind of legwork (okay, bus and car-work) was
what ninety percent of detective work amounted to. At least he was
learning something this time. That wasn’t always the case.

Veraguas

Clint parked at the little La Tipica
Restaurant in Veraguas, got out of the car, stretched, swore and
went inside. There were only two patrons this time of the
afternoon, so he was able to talk with the owner for a bit. He knew
who Gordo was and that he came there a lot, but he didn’t know why,
other than fares. The businessmen in Santiago would take a taxi
instead of the bus. It wasn’t that much and was faster and more
pleasant.

Clint
was
not
going to
drive anymore today! He asked about the best hotel in the moderate
price range and was told the owner, Samuel Amorosa, had three nice
rooms he rented right there. Air conditioning and cable TV, though
the hot water was turned off this time of the year. The water came
from the tank at a reasonably comfortable temperature and
electricity for commercial was very expensive.

Clint always preferred a cool shower so took
the $21.00 room. It was surprisingly comfortable and was close to
almost everything. There was a popular night club about two blocks
away and shopping was from there on into the centro.

Clint cleaned up and rested for an hour, then
went to the bar. It seemed to be the most popular one in this part
of Veraguas. Gordo and the two Canadians were sitting at the bar.
The taxi was outside. There wasn’t anything in it.

Confront them? Call in the police? Wait and
watch?

He decided to wait and watch. He’d try to
start a conversation. He took a stool next to Gordo and nodded to
the three, then said, “I think I saw you in Almirante at the dock
near the water taxi a few days ago. You were with a girl from
Ireland?”

“
Uh! Er,
that is, we went to Bocas for a night,” Besford answered. “We
weren’t much impressed. Shannon, the girl, stayed. We decided we’d
see the rest of Panamá.”

“
Yeah.
Bocas is the kind of place you either like or don’t. It’s a party
town, what with the surfers and backpackers,” Clint said. “I kind
of like it for a few days at the time, then want to go
elsewhere.

“
You just
left her there? You weren’t traveling together?”

“
Oh, no!
We met her in Changuinola. She said she came to Panamá via Sixola
and that was her first stop. She was going to Bocas the next day,
we were going to Bocas the next day so we sort of went together.
She was a sort of strange one!” Dennis said. It sounded rehearsed
to Clint. They’d made up a story to tell. They’d stick to it. Gordo
even said she’d ridden in his taxi from Changuinola to David with
them and she did seem a little strange. She promised to pay her
part of the ride, then stuck it to the guys. They ended up paying
for her.

“
She was
really a bitch on wheels!” Besford said sourly. “She’d be your best
friend, then stick you in the ass! She, uh, used us to find a place
to stay and get meals cheap and all that, then takes off with some
black dude she met in that little bar by the bus station in
Almirante!”

“
Taxi?
You say you drove a taxi from here to Changuinola? I’ll bet that
was some fare!” Clint said to Gordo.

“
I, er,
that is, took a couple of people in the development business there.
Two hundred twenty dollars! I was going to ask two hundred, one of
them said they would pay that and not a penny more so I acted like
I might or might not, then agreed. These people were coming here
anyway and I didn’t have a return fare so I only charged them
fifty. It was found money for me.

“
As a
driver, never tell anyone what you’ll pay. Ask the cuenta, then
bargain a bit for that kind of trip.

“
I saw
you drive in so I know I’m not giving the stick to another
taxi.”

Clint laughed and said he’d learned that a
long time ago. He chatted with them a bit, then talked to a pretty
girl who accompanied him back to his room. It was a great
night!

In the morning Clint went to the restaurant
downtown near the bus terminal. It was the only place open at five
thirty. He had hojaldres, bolitas and coffee and chatted with the
woman running the place. There were only a few Indios there that
early and she was suspicious of them. Clint said they were the only
people he trusted as a group. There were a few rotten apples, but
that was true of any group of people. He managed to sound like he
was just chatting, but she got the point. Clint didn’t have
patience with bigots.

He soon went to the table where four of the
Indios were sitting and said, “Coin dega! Tica Clint.” (Good
morning. I am Clint)

One of them grinned and said, in excellent
English, “That is Ngoberé. We speak a different dialect here. Good
morning. I am Solbiero, this is Tomas, this is Sandros and this is
Fredrico.”

“
I’m a
detective,” Clint said, knowing the best way to get along with
anyone is to be up-front and yourself. “I’m interested in some
people who came in yesterday. Gordo, the taxi driver, and two
Canadians with him.”

“
Gordo is
a shithead and a ladron,” Sandros said in not-as-good English. “If
they came with him they are not to be trusted.”

“
I
figured as much. I just want to know what they’re up to here. I
think they killed a woman in Bocas.

“
Do you
know what may have been the reason Gordo went to Bocas with the
woman?”

“
The
red-haired lady? She lived with him a week or so. They had some
kind of plan about something. She is the dead woman?”

Clint nodded. “We’ll speak Spanish if any of
you don’t speak English. Do you know anything at all about
her?”

“
She met
with a man in Santiago a lot and with Juan Ysalas, the lawyer. They
had some kind of thing. The man from Santiago came twice to see
her. The lawyer brought some papers,” Sandros answered.

“
She met
with Aldo once. He went to the house and she was the only one
there. He stayed an hour,” Fredrico said. “We work in the finca
that is all the way around the place he stays if you wonder why we
know so much about them.”